Rethinking Government: A Smarter Way to Put Out Fires

By Barry Greenfield

A full-time fire department can be expensive and, in many places, unnecessary. It's time to think about outsourcing services to the city next door.

SwedishCarina/Flickr

Believe
it or not, there was a time when government ran a surplus. Even today, in this
economy, there are municipalities that consistently close out their annual
budgets with a surplus. Somewhere along the road of good government, the
concept of a "profit" became a bad idea. Most taxpayers would argue that
government is not a business, but in the same vein they would like to see
government operated more like a
business.

Successful businesses have a major advantage over government: They typically provide
a particular type of product or service. One of government's biggest hurdles is
the sheer number of services it must provide, often with very limited
resources.

Yet it is clear that some municipalities or counties are better suited than
others to provide a specific service. For instance, the city of Salem,
Massachusetts, has one of the fastest response times of any fire department in
Essex County. In the business world, that is known as a "competitive
advantage."

So why
hasn't Salem offered its services to other neighboring communities? Two
reasons: 1) a lack of knowledge on how to market services and 2) the strength
of union officials in dictating how politicians will act.

Taxpayers should be demanding outsourced services as a means to cost-efficient
government. Why? Because outsourcing already plays a major role in a taxpayer's
daily life. Consider public education as a cost-efficient alternative to
self-educating your children. Grocery stores enable people to not have to grow
their own food. Sanitation workers save residents a drive to the local
landfill.

Let's go back to Salem. The city could identify how much it would cost to fight
a fire in a neighboring town. Based on the number of firefighters, vehicles,
equipment, time, and mileage, a price schedule could be developed showing how
much to charge a "client" for fighting a fire. Once the net cost had been
identified, Salem could "gross" it up to build in a profit. Maybe the city
could even charge a small retainer for being on-call.

Likewise,
neighboring towns could look at how many annual fires there are (often very
few) and price out the difference between a full force of firemen (often very
high) and Salem's per-fire cost. It's a win-win. By expanding coverage, Salem would
be not only saving its neighbors the cost of a full fire department but making
more efficient use of its own under-utilized personnel. (A similar concept is
already in full use in California, where CalFire, a state-run agency, not only
protects the state's forests but outsources its fire-fighting services to municipalities.)

So, why
are taxpayers not hounding politicians to outsource services to the city next
door if it can offer a better product at a lower price? Because taxpayers are
consumers, and without awareness of a service, they have no reason to request
it. Without a progressive politician at the helm to guide a city towards a new
type of government, there is little chance new ideas will be spawned. It's time
for taxpayers to gather enough information to push for change, bringing taxes
down while improving services for everyone.